Grayson

Chapter Three

Grayson woke the next day and ate a quick breakfast at the diner. He wished he had some kind of work to do today. He hated having nothing to do but he knew that if he showed up at Brendan's farm today the old man would be pissed and he didn't want to risk losing his job there. It was the closest thing to a home he had. He decided to walk to the tailors shop down the road and see about buying a new set of clothes since his all of his were old, stained and coming apart at the seams.

He was just walking out with his new clothes wrapped tight in paper under his arm when he heard someone whistle across the street. He was going to ignore it, assuming they must be whistling for someone else, but then they shouted.

"Grayson Fields! Is that you?" Grayson turned and looked at the man who was jogging across the road toward him. Grayson couldn't believe his eyes when he recognized that it was James Mcbride. James and Grayson had been best friends all of their lives.. Or at least until that night five years ago when everyone in Grayson's life had turned their backs on him.

"Yeah it's me." Grayson replied squaring his shoulders and glaring at the shorter man.

"Of course it's you. You're the only son of a bitch I know that could pass himself off as an oak tree." James said smiling and running his hand over his dirty red beard.

"What are you doing here?" Grayson asked. He wanted to be happy to see his best friend but all he could think of was the questioning look that had been in James's eyes five years ago. The look that questioned whether or not Phillip's murder had been in cold blood.

"I've been looking for you, Grayson. You were a damn hard man to find."

"Not like I was hiding, James." Grayson replied. James sighed.

"You think we could go into the saloon and talk for a while?" he asked. Grayson looked hard at his former best friend for several long moments. He had changed quite a bit in the last five years. He hadn't gotten any taller but his freckles had gotten bigger, if that was possible, and his nose had clearly been broken at least once. He looked older now than he had before but Grayson figured he probably looked older too.

"Sure." Grayson said and then he turned and walked down the boardwalk toward the saloon. James nearly had to jog to keep up with the bigger mans long strides.

Once they were seated at a table in the back of the nearly empty saloon Grayson cleared his throat.

"Why were you looking for me?" he asked.

"You need to come home." James replied. Grayson snorted and pulled his hat off so he could shove his hand through his hair before placing his hat back on.

"I was told to never come back." he said matter-of-factly. "I don't think I'd be too welcome if I showed up now."

"That was five years ago, Grayson. You gotta come back sometime." James argued. Grayson shook his head.

"No." he replied. "I ain't going back and having everybody treat me like I'm some kind of cold blooded murderer."

"Nobody is going…." Grayson cut him off by slamming his fist down on the table.

"That's horseshit and you know it! Hell we grew up together, James, and even you think I killed my brother in cold blood!" he yelled. "The only damn person that believed me was the sheriff, thank God, or else I'd a been swinging from a noose in the middle of town!"

"Well it's not like you helped matters much with that God awful temper and all that pride you got. You wouldn't even tell nobody the story of what really happened. You just let everybody think what they wanted."

"Well I assumed that everybody I cared about, all my damn friends and family, would never believe that I could murder my brother in cold blood. Obviously we both know I was wrong." Grayson replied his voice cold and angry. James sighed and looked down at the scarred up old table with shame in his eyes.