Stranger

July 1881On the crest of a long ridge, where the eastern slope of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains fell to high desert, Caleb McCurdy paused to rest his horse. Below him a sea of summer-gold grama grass, dotted with clumps of sage and juniper, rippled over the foothills. Willow and cottonwood formed a winding ribbon of green along the creek that meandered into the valley. If he followed that ribbon, Caleb knew it would lead him to an adobe ranch house with sheds and a corral out front and a springhouse just beyond the back door. He had never wanted to come here again. But the memory of the place had haunted him for the five years he'd spent in Yuma Territorial Prison. Now that he was free, Caleb knew he had to return and face what had happened here. He had to find out what had become of Laura. crime against the Shaftons. It was later that same spring that his brothers had gone into a Tombstone bank and left him outside to watch the horses. By the time Caleb had realized there was a robbery in progress the deputy was already snapping the handcuffs around his wrists. Zeke and Noah had made their getaway out the back of the bank. That was the last he'd seen of them. Caleb had been tried as an accessory and sentenced to six years behind bars. The torridArizona nights had given him plenty of time to ponder his mistakes. Staying with Noah and Zeke had been his worst choice. They were family, he'd rationalized at the time. Besides, it wasn't as if Noah had killed Mark Shafton in cold blood. Noah had fired to save his brothers.As for Zeke, he couldn't help being the creature he was. For all his flaws, he, too, was blood kin. Caleb's fist tightened around the saddle horn. Lord, what a fool he'd been, tagging along with his brothers like a puppy trotting after a pair of wolves. He should have known his trust would lead him straight down the road to hell. If the tragedy at the Shafton Ranch had cracked the shell of Caleb's innocence, the weeks that followed had shattered it. Liquor, gambling, womenhe'd sampled them all. He would have done anything to blot out the sight of Laura's bloodied face and the sound of her screams. His brothers had roared their approval and declared him a man. Then they'd staked him out like bait in front of that Tombstone bank to draw the lawmen while they got away with the loot. Good behavior had gotten him out of prison a year early. But the hot hell of Yuma had toughened, aged and embittered him. He was twenty-two years old. He felt fifty. Nudging the sturdy bay to a walk, he wound his way down the brushy slope. The day he'd walked out of prison, he'd taken work with a road-building crew that hired ex-convicts. Two months of backbreaking labor had earned him enough to buy a horse, a beatup saddle, a gun and knife, a blanket and a change of clothes. With twenty dollars in his pocket, he'd headed east, toward New Mexico and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Now, on this day of blinding beauty, the long ride was coming to an end. The afternoon sky was a searing turquoise blue. Where the horse walked, clouds of white butterflies floated out of the grass. A red-tailed hawk circled against the sun. Caleb's throat tightened as he watched it. How many days like this had he missed, locked away in that sweltering heap of rock and adobe where the cells were ovens and the earth was hot enough to blister bare skin? How many days without fresh air, clean water and decent human companionship? Annoyed with himself, he shoved the question aside. Self-pity was a waste. Rotten luck was a fact of life, and he'd long since learned not to whine when he got whipped. Besides, Caleb reminded himself, his time in prison hadn't all been wasted. He'd made one friend there, a dying man who'd helped him turn his life around. If his beaten soul held a glimmer of hope and truth, he owed it to Ebenezer Stokes. Maybe that was why he'd come back here. For EbenezerLane, Elizabeth is the author of 'Stranger ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780373294565 and ISBN 0373294565.