~ Will's Saving Grace ~

by

Cynthia Scott

One

Texas Panhandle

October, 1885

Two more brothers dead.

Will Donegan stared at the message, grief hollowing his gut.

The curse of the Devil’s Moon still nipped his heels.

He blinked, three times, raised a hand to tug his hat farther over his hair, then paused in midair, clenching his fist to resist the urge. Instead, he curled his fingers over the letter, folding it in half--again and again--until the square fit easily between his thumb and finger. Then he squished it, squeezing with all his might, praying his strength would erase the devastating words.

It didn’t work.

For ten years he’d searched, working his way from east to west across Texas, trying to find the remains of his family, kin he had no notion existed until he was nearly twenty. All the years before, when he’d thought he was alone and unloved, he’d had eight brothers and sisters scattered across the Lone Star state like tumbleweeds. Orphans, like him, sent to whichever Irish family’d take them.

His sisters were untraceable--all supposed married and known by other last names--but Will had believed he’d find his brothers. The farther he traveled, though, the fewer folks recognized the Donegan name. No matter how many letters and telegrams he sent, no matter how many notices he posted, no one had news. This town, Clarendon, Texas, one of only three in the isolated Panhandle, had been his last lead.

Two more brothers dead.

He crumpled the paper and admitted what he’d dreaded the moment he’d set out. No doubt about it, the trail had gone cold.

He was alone after all.

"Bad news?" Mrs. Potter, owner of the general store and the woman in charge of the crate-sized post office, glided toward him.

"Not good." Will sagged against the plank that served as a counter. Complaints, excuses, arguments and pleas against the injustice of the message spun through his mind, but he didn’t voice them. He’d learned early in life to suffer in silence or face a beating, and old habits were hard to break. "Much obliged for your help."

"Will, are you ill?"

"No, ma’am."

In each town, there’d always been one person who’d assisted him; the telegrapher, the local preacher, or the storekeeper. Mrs. Potter, a woman from back east, helped him here in Clarendon and was the only one who’d taken a personal interest. But she’d just lost her husband. He couldn’t burden her with his troubles.

"I don’t want to pry," she said gently, "but may I ask if anyone had news of Lee?"

He straightened. Lee. His twin.

Will unclenched his fist and scrambled to open the letter. His heart pounded like a hammer, and his tongue thickened with desperate hope, but he managed to read the important parts aloud. "Mr. Donegan. I regret to report Patrick and Sean Donegan are deceased--ranching accident and tornado. Lee Donegan was never found."

"Never found?" Mrs. Potter arched a blonde eyebrow. "Does that mean he’s dead and they didn’t find the body? Or--"

"They never found any information."

"Oh, Will." She laid a hand on his arm. "That means Lee could still be alive."

He took a deep breath. All his life he’d had strange pangs and twinges. Sometimes his stomach would cramp. Other days, he’d feel so happy he wanted to shout out loud. Some folks had blamed the curse, saying the Devil had hold of him. At first, Will had been too young to understand, and believed he was evil, that old man O’Hara had been right to beat him, to drive out the forces taking over Will’s body. Later, as he grew and felt good, helpful feelings within his heart--and love for his adopted mother--he no longer believed he had a black soul, only that he was cursed with bad luck. Everything he touched seemed to go wrong. Even that horrible night--

No, that was best forgotten. Better to focus on the future, and his future meant finding his family--specifically, Lee, his twin. Discovering he had family, particularly a twin, had been hope-fostering news, and at that moment he’d grasped the truth: he’d been experiencing Lee’s emotions, suffering his pain, sharing his happiness.

Now Will turned his mind inward and searched his feelings, looking far beyond his grief... Yes! That eerie connection was still there, that sense of fullness, of belonging.

"You bet he’s alive," Will said. Renewed strength flowed through him. His long-ignored Irish heritage, just strong enough for him to believe in fairies, leprechauns and spirits unseen, convinced him if Lee had died, Will would have known it; felt pain or intense loss. "He’s alive, Mrs. Potter, and I’m going to find him."

"Amen to that," she said. "Shall I inquire farther north? I have acquaintances in Kansas, and my late husband had relatives in Colorado--"

"Something tells me Lee’s in Texas," Will said, "but it doesn’t hurt to try." Mrs. Potter handed him some paper and a stub of a pencil. He scribbled a note giving the little information he had about his twin. "Here," he said, handing her the folded letter. "Where to first, Denver or Dodge City?"

"Dodge is the closest. I’m expecting the mail coach any day. I’ll send it right out."

"Thank you, Mrs. Potter." Will tipped his hat, grabbed his sack of supplies and turned to the door. A shaggy, silver-bearded geezer met him on the steps.

"You finished jawing with these tea-totalers?" Buford "Cookie" Wilson asked.

Will grinned in spite of himself. Cookie rustled up grub for the cowboys on the Single Tree Ranch where Will had worked the last few months as a blacksmith. He was gruff, but Will liked him and understood the man’s sour mood. Methodists had settled Clarendon, and they didn’t allow an ounce of liquor in their town.

Ranch hands, cowboys and chuck wagon cooks looking to wet their whistle or drown their sorrows were flat out of luck, and avoided Clarendon--"Saint’s Roost"--like the plague.

"Let’s go," Will said.

"Got them supplies my Annie wants? Our new owner’s coming tomorrow. We go back without them fancy fixin’s and she’ll have both our hides."

"Flour, molasses, lard," Will said, indicating the sack, "and some jars of who knows what."

"Don’t understand that daughter of mine sidling up to them dang Britishers. They ain’t nothing but look-down-your-nose-at-good-folks snobs."

Will climbed onto the seat of the buckboard, and grabbed the reins. An English outfit had bought the ranch all right, but that didn’t mean anything because foreigners seemed to own half the land in the Panhandle. The new owner of the Single Tree Ranch, though, was different.

He was worse.

"He’s an earl," Will said harshly. "He’s nobility."

"Ain’t a thing noble about it," Cookie said, spewing a stream of tobacco into the dirt. "Just a fancy way of saying he thinks he’s better’n everyone else. Why he ain’t even worked his own stock. What man’s better’n another who ain’t even roped and branded his own cattle?"

Will shrugged. He’d learned to read from three books; The Bible, The Farmer’s Almanac, and Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. Mr. Dickens had put things pretty plain. The English couldn’t abide the Irish, the poor or orphans.

God help him he was all three. The moment Earl of Wherever found out, Will’d lose his job. Then how would he find Lee? His soul told him his twin was close, so close. If he left the ranch, left the Clarendon area and Mrs. Potter’s help, how would he find the last of his family?

His heart dropped to his knees, and pain fiercer than anything he’d ever felt gripped him. He had to keep his job, find his brother and settle to a place he could call home. Otherwise he’d face the one thing he feared most.

Being alone--for the rest of his life.