Nobody Says It's Easy

48

He spells his name wrong.

To me, it should be Cursed.

Tall, dark, handsome.

Handsome Curst.

They picked the right name for him. I never should have let on I heard him talking to me. Never should have smiled. My fault. All my fault. Yet, he was so nice. Such a fine gentleman. His voice carried like the sound of whippoorwills in the meadow.

I think he saw it in my eyes. Yes. My fault.

He took me in the woods that day. I was such a colt, yet I fought like a cougar. It was no use. He was too strong. After it was over, I remember sitting among the leaves. Clothes torn. Crying. How far away that all seems now. How very far away.

Still, something catches in my heart when I think of it. I must not think of it. Those days are gone. I cannot bring them back. I would not want to.

My poor twin darlings. The silver lining of that dark, awful day. Were it not for you both, I would have snuffed out the candle of my life long ago.

***

What was she talking about? Hadley thought. Rape? She shuffled through the old pages, picked up another entry, and started reading.

***

A dark cloud hangs over my two boys. Colt and Cody are not speaking to each other. It breaks my heart. The rift that divides them is caused by a woman. Oh, why did they both set their sights upon the same one?

But what of their father?

He loves her, too. I can tell. I have seen them in Durmonth. More than once.

He looks at her as he did me when I was that age. But she is safe, I think. She is rich. And he would never risk his reputation, I think. Reputation is everything to him. I was a safe choice in his mind. I was poor. I was an orphan.

Oh, Colt and Cody.

Is there no hope that any of this can come to a good end?

I fear not.

***

My sons are bitter enemies. I pray each day that this storm between them will pass. But it has not. If anything, it has grown worse.

Each has tried to kill the other more than once. I am mortified and fearful of what will happen.

I struggle to make sense of it all. My sons are strangers. They both have lost their heads. And over one woman. Each has his own version of what he believes is the truth.

Colt says he loved the Colonel's daughter, but she betrayed him. He refuses to tell me who this man is, but I believe I already know. Cody believes his brother is a hot-headed, sore loser. Cody insists he has won the heart of this young lady. I cannot believe this is true. Why would a girl such as that give either of my boys the time of day? We are not her kind. But Cody insists that what he says is true.

He swears to me once the girl's birthday passes, they will be married. It is only two weeks away. My son is busy at the hotel. He barely has time to see her, he says. There is going to be a moving picture made right here in our valley, he tells me. And he is so excited about all that is about to take place.

I do not know what to believe.

I am inclined to think both of my children have been overtaken by some raging fever that has put them out of their right minds.

***

The hotel across the river has burned to the ground! I can only pray the Lord has spared my beloved son. My heart is seeped in bitterness. Cody is missing. The girl he set his heart on was found dead in an abandoned well. They think my Cody did it! Perhaps, he did! Perhaps, it was his twin brother who took her life! Colt has it in him. Perhaps in a fit of anger, in a burst of sudden madness.

Even as I write these words, I cannot bear to think the two people I love the most have been turned into strangers by a she-devil's ardor.

I wonder if I would not prefer his body found among the ashes of that great hotel. I go insane with grief! What can I do? What can I do? I yearn to help! To save my son! If only a merciful God would see fit to let this dreadful cup pass! Tell me what to do! Please, tell me what to do! I must help! I have to! But I am only a Corbett! What can I possibly do?

***

Sirens across the way interrupted her daydreaming.

Something was on fire on the other side of the river!