Epilogue

Mid-June 1873

“I still can’t talk you into staying here with us?” Ian asked one last time as he came around behind his nephew’s packhorse.

Donegan snagged O’Roarke by the scruff of the neck and brought his uncle close, into a fierce embrace, then tore himself away after but a moment, afraid of weakening.

He went back to lashing the gum poncho that enclosed his blankets behind his saddle.

“At least give it more time before you decide.”

Seamus turned to look into the man’s moist eyes as they caught the first light of predawn just now creeping over the hills into the yard outside the house. “I’ve had plenty of time to think, Uncle. It’s time I go back.”

“Still set on home?”

“Aye, Ian,” he sighed. “It sounds so far … far away right now—doesn’t it?”

“Why won’t you even head southwest to San Francisco, catch a packet from there, around the horn and back to New York or Boston?”

He wagged his head, the big smile cutting a wide swath in the chill air. “I must do this my way, Ian. Back over the mountains.”

“What’s out there for you, Seamus? Out there for any half-civilized white man anymore?”

Seamus thought on it a moment before answering. “To see it one last time before going home to Eire. To be sure I have gleaned all that I can carry of it home in my heart before I go. That’s why.”

Ian dragged a battered pipe from his pocket and with a finger retamped the old tobacco in the bowl. “That godforsaken wilderness claimed one of your uncles. And it nearly claimed another—had I not come here when I did.”

“But look at you,” Seamus said, his big arm sweeping in a wide arc, “this very country nearly swallowed you as much as the plains swallowed Liam. That ground is no more a hell than this has been for some.”

O’Roarke dragged the lucifer along the sole of his boot, sucking the flame into the bowl and its charge of dark leaf. When he had inspected the red cherry and tossed the lucifer aside, he said, “When it comes down to it, Seamus—I suppose I have chosen my place to stand … as much as Liam chose his on that nameless river you’ve not talked about much.”

“In the end,” Donegan replied, slapping the big mare on the rump as he finished his preparations for the trail, “that’s all any of us can ask of ourselves, isn’t it? That we find our own place.”

“So—you’ve decided this isn’t yours.”

“A fine place it is, Ian. A land so steeped in moisture that the roots don’t have to grow so deep here as they do on the far plains. A rich land where a man can grow his crops and raise his stock without worry of having enough water, or worrying about the next Sioux or Cheyenne war-party to come riding over the hill.”

Ian looked up at his nephew’s face, studying it closely. “That’s it—at least part of it, ain’t it? You like not knowing—perhaps the uncertainty of that life on those far plains and in those mountains still. Aye?”

Seamus pursed his lips in concentration. “Perhaps that’s part of it. All I know is that this is a good place to raise children as well as those crops and cattle you tend to so well, Uncle. So here is where Ian O’Roarke should stay,” he said, looking over the older man’s shoulder as Dimity dragged the front door back into shadow and stepped into the light. “To stay here … with a good woman who will stand beside him. With that—no man is ever in the wrong place.”

Seamus crossed the muddy yard to meet her halfway. She put out both her hands for him. He held them but a moment then pushed them aside, sweeping her up into his big arms.

“He so wants you to stay, Seamus,” Dimity whispered against his chest, so that only Donegan could hear.

He squeezed her tight, one last time. “There will be a time when I can return,” he whispered against the fragrant top of her head. “Keep telling him that. Remind him of that for me whenever he grows too wistful—and yearns for my return.”

The children poured into the muddy yard to stand behind their mother as Seamus pulled back to hold the woman at arm’s length. She reached up and with fingertips swiped some tears from the tall man’s ruddy cheek.

“As long as Ian had talked and talked about his nephew, I always wondered what you would be like—you and me so close in age.” Then Dimity smiled, bravely, swiping Donegan’s other cheek. “And now it fills my heart with warmth to know you are so much like Ian. Not just reminding him of your mother—but he loves you so just for being what you are. And finding you so much like him.”

“That must hurt most of all then,” Seamus said quietly as he let her go and took a step back, “to know that even though I am so much like Ian … I can still tear myself away from places and people and move on, like Liam.”

“But like Ian—I am certain it hurts you more than you would ever let us know.”

Seamus sensed the salty sting blurring his eyes once more and turned to the children who had clustered at the doorjamb. With both arms he waved them into his embrace. All five at once: tall Patience and young Seamus, his namesake, little Liam and Charity and, last to scurry up atop his short legs, young Thomas.

Each grabbing and clutching for a piece of this giant of a cousin who had ridden into their lives more than half a year ago, and now was heartbeats away from riding back out again.

He touched each cheek, kissed each forehead, gave the three boys a tousle of their hair and both the girls a gentlemanly bow as he called out their names one last time, as if to let his own heart vow to return to this home and warmth when needed most.

Then all six of them met again in that embrace no man is ever ashamed to share with loved ones … before Seamus tore himself away and strode through the softening mud to his uncle’s side.

“You’ll send us word—something—each place you stop on your way?”

Seamus nodded, swallowing down the hot ball that threatened to choke him still. “I plan on riding to St. Louis, from there catching a boat down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Surely there I can find something heading home—perhaps some captain who could use my muscle in payment for my steerage.”

“Aye,” Ian said, his voice growing low and raspy as he swallowed down his own pain. “Amerikay will not easily claim Mother Donegan’s firstborn son, will she?”

“Home,” he said wistfully. “Where that woman has too long waited for me to return. If that homecoming cannot be with her brothers, then best it be that I return before she breathes her last prayer.”

“Tell her of my love, Seamus. And how I love this family of mine—and this new land … in so many ways like Eire.”

“Yes, the land. You really do feel that in your heart—don’t you?”

Ian watched his nephew climb into the saddle. Then reached up and grabbed Donegan’s hand as it adjusted the rein. “My prayers go with you, nephew. Knowing now how for the rest of your life you will have that struggle waging within your heart. At last I know you carry within you the best and the worst of your uncles. And for the rest of your days, you will suffer that struggle between what Liam loved most, and what Ian held most dear.”

Seamus bent far over, with one arm dragging his uncle to his toes in one last embrace. Then he suddenly jabbed the heels of his muddy, new army boots into the mare’s flanks, demanding she take him from this place. And quickly.

It was not until he was far down the rutted lane, when he thought he would not be discovered, that Seamus turned to look at what he was leaving behind. Wondering if such happiness of hearth and home and family would ever be his to have … fearing that it would not.

The O’Roarkes still stood, long after he had passed from sight through the trees—the seven of them. The children huddled close, arms entwined with their parents: two people so fiercely in love that nothing—not this brutal land, not enemies pale-skinned nor red, and certainly not time and distance—could keep apart.

Seamus prayed he would one day find a home for his heart.