Walker: Surrender

Chapter 2

August wandered absentmindedly through the quiet house, stopping when he saw the board game still set out on the coffee table in the living room. The board game that his sister and father had been playing earlier that day. Sitting down on the couch in front of the game he picked up one of the tokens, looking at it as he turned it over in his fingers. Why? He felt that lump rising in his throat and took a deep breath, placing the token back onto the board game before picking up one of the 'action' card stacks to absentmindedly shuffle.

The house was quiet, in fact, he was the only one there. His grandfather was out with Uncle Trey helping direct the search, Maddie had left hours ago to go help and still hadn't returned yet. Mawline had disappeared out of the house awhile ago, Uncle Liam was out on the porch and Stella, well, she and Todd were out trying to help too wherever they could.

He was here, alone.

Tears came to his eyes as he kept shuffling the cards. He'd been out trying to help with the search but he knew it was hopeless. His father wasn't on the ranch. He'd helped for a time then come back into the house. He felt useless. With the amount of people out there searching they hadn't needed him. Not when Maddie was out there actually doing something.

He'd heard that Dakota had found their father's watch from his uncle and not that long ago, overheard that they had found a bullet casing as well.

Of course it had been Maddie to be the one that had found the clues. She was always doing something, always proving how good and perfect she was. This time was no different. How could he compete with that? At least Stella was moving away to college in a few months. He'd only have to deal with Maddie then.

No. You can't be like that.

He sighed at what the little voice in the back of his mind told him.

Right now all he needed to be concerned with was the fact that his father was missing.

That and hoping that he would be found soon.

~~~~~

Liam sat on the porch watching the proceedings taking place in the ranch yard, chewing on his fingernails. A person just didn't disappear without a trace and yet, Cordell had almost, apart from them finding his watch. As another SUV drove up the drive he straightened in his chair and stood to go see who it was, a relieved sigh escaping him as he saw it was Ben.

'I just talked to Cass.' Ben started as he jogged over to Liam. 'I-I wanted to...' He was cut off when Liam placed his arms around him, hugging him tight and after a moment's hesitation, he returned the embrace.

'Hey...' Liam said when he let him go. 'Thanks for being here.'

He nodded, his hands still on Liam's shoulders. 'What can I do to help?'

'Everyone, they-they're out searching... I guess-I guess we could go join them.' He paused for a moment, looking out across the ranch yard where a couple of neighbors were unloading horses from their trailer to go join in on the search. 'Do you... Do you want to go do that?'

'Yeah, yeah, of course. Just let me grab a couple things from my car and we'll be on our way.'

Liam nodded and Ben left to get what he needed then the two of them walked over to where the search was taking place. The sun was beginning to set as they walked up the track again where it had happened, where the watch had been found.

'Hey, uh, we'll be tracing your steps-- I-I get it, I-I do, but, um...' Ben finally spoke, breaking the long silence as he held out his water bottle to him. 'you got to drink some water. I don't want you getting dehydrated. And now...'