Refuge Saga(WT)

Chapter Two

Chapter II

Uriah downed his coffee and set the white porcelain mug back on the table with an audible clap.


Sid eyed him over the rim of his own mug, “You’ve been simmering since Hoke left, now you look ready to whistle like a tea kettle. Care to take the lid off whatever’s boiling in your pot.”


Uriah gazed at his colleague, picked up his empty cup and then set it down again with a thud, after taking a sip of air. “It’s not right, what happened to George Rose.” The words all got clogged in his throat. He picked up his cup and put it down again with a strangled roar. “How does God let a good woman die and just sit by?”


“Abigail is a good God fearing woman and the Lord knows he’s about to call her home, but she ain’t dead yet.” Sid cocked his head and narrowed his eyes, “But that’s not who you are talking about is it?”


Uriah turned away.  He wasn’t ready to talk about Virginia yet.


He’d known her in a time span of months and yet she was cleaved to him in a way words could never explain. The pain of losing her… Having his heart physically cut out wouldn’t even compare to the pain of seeing his life stretch out before him and know that he would never share another hour with her.


Uriah shoved the pain down and deliberately thought about the rider of the roan. He hadn’t seen the face of the man, but he knew, he knew it was Billy. He’d seen the rider’s spurs. Half of the wheel was spiked representing the sun while the other half was smooth, representing the moon. Billy had been proud of them and shown them off. He’d said they were special order, made from a design he drew.


Billy was still breathing, Ginny was cold in the ground. Georg would soon lose his wife for reasons no one understood. They only knew her own  body was killing her. And Hoke, Hoke stood to make money off of land George had paid for with the sweat of his brown.


“Do you still believe Sid,” Uriah wondered aloud, “that God is good?”


Sid pursed his lips and rubbed the salt and pepper stubble on his chin. “Yes, I do.”


The silence at the table was broken by the arrival of a slender, smartly dressed man with wave black hair and slightly European features. “Am I interrupting something?” He asked, his green eyes flicking from one to the other.


“No.” Sid answered. “Lucy, get Armando a chair won’t you girl.” Sid directed the proprietor’s daughter who’d just sashayed up with a coffee pot in hand.


“Can I get you something to drink too Mr. Vega?” she asked after refilling Uriah’s cup.


“No thank you and don’t mind the chair.” Armando swung a spoke backed chair around and plunked his note pad on to the cotton cloth covered table. “I spoke to Hank,” Armando, began. “He still insists the robbery was his idea.”


“You don’t believe that do you?” Uriah asked his brother-in-law.


“It doesn’t matter what I believe Uriah. It matters what the boy says to the judge. Who, by the way should be here in a week maybe two, depending on the Carson’s docket.” Armando was a lawyer, and Refuge’s only lawyer.


Uriah shook his head. This was the shortest time he’d ever seen a judge make it to a back water town.


“Did Hank say who the other man was?” Sid asked.


Armando picked up his pad and perused his notes. “Apparently it was a man by the name of William Conner.” He read. “The boy seems to think he was some kind of legendary bank robber—“ Armando was interrupted by the heavy scrape of Uriah’s chair across the wood floor.


“I told you it was him.” Uriah stood.


“We can’t be sure it was Billy Uriah. Hank isn’t old enough to know him on sight.


“Why are you defending him?” Uriah demanded.


“You’ve been gone a long time Uriah, things change, some for the worse,” he flung a hand in the direction of the bank, but sometimes for the good.” Sid stood facing off with his onetime subordinate. Uriah didn’t back down. “If you want to bring him in, you will do it on your own.” Sid said before he stole Uriah’s thunder by marching out of the café first.


Uriah marched with him hot on Sid’s heels.“If you know where he is, you’ve got to tell me. Or is that star on your chest just decoration?” Uriah breathed down the older man’s neck.


Sid drew up so sharply, forcing Uriah to side step him to keep from colliding with him.  The Sheriff turned, he was nose to nose with Uriah. “Billy’s changed, Uriah.” He said evenly before spinning back around; but must have thought better of it because Sid reversed himself again. “And I don’t think he ever was the man you believe him to be.” Sid punctuated his points with a painful jab to Uriah’s chest. “He’s not the man that rode that roan out of town. And he’s not the man that helped Hank rob that bank.” Sid finished before he stepped out of the café. “If you want to find him you’ll do it alone. He isn’t hiding.” He hollered back over his shoulder.


Uriah rubbed the spot Sid had pocked on his chest as he stood there, chest heaving as he struggled to bridle the emotional storm in his heart. Finally he strode out of the Café and began a half jog to catch up with Sid.


Following Uriah out, Armando called, “I know where he’s at” The two men turned in union. “He may have information that will shed light on what is going on.” Armando explained to the glaring Sid who turned and stomped off. To Uriah he said. “He’s blacksmithing northwest of Cold River.”


“Thank you Armando.” Uriah raked a hand through his sandy locks and planted his hat on his head before he turned to walk away.


“Uriah.” Armando took a step toward his brother-in-law. Come out to the ranch. Have dinner with Elizabeth and I before you go.”


Uriah was going to say “no,” but a better part of the day was gone and he wouldn’t be getting much farther than the ranch anyway. He nodded his consent and continued on his way to the hotel.








Uriah dismounted outside his brother-in-law’s office later that afternoon. It was a small affair tacked on to the jail like an afterthought. Uriah rapped on the door and entered the office.


He cleared his throat trying to adjust to the unfamiliar feeling of filling up a space. His brother-in-law’s office was just big enough for the desk, the two leather and brass tack chairs, the coat rack and the two floor-to-ceiling book shelves that groaned under the weight of the law books and reverence volumes crammed into them. A nice euphemism for the office would be cozy, but really it was just cramped.


Armando looked up from the book open on his desk. His sleeves were rolled up to keep them out of the ink and paper and pen were in his hand. “Ah Uriah, is it five already?” He took his spectacles off and pinched the bridge of his harp nose.


“I take it not much good news.” Uriah said.


“No, there is. The doctor released Rory. It was a flesh wound. So the boy’s life isn’t at risk.” Armando put his glasses back on and stood gathering papers up and closing the various books he was using.


“And yet you don’t sound like that is good news.” Uriah noted.


Armando conceded with a nod and a wave of his hand. “The bad news overshadows the good. The judge assigned to hear the case believes in using the harshest punishment allowable by law. Barring a miracle, Hank will spend time in prison.”


Prison was no place for a boy, and the look in Armando’s eyes told Uriah he knew that.








Armando drove the wagon to the barn and Uriah followed on his own mount to help him stall the team for the night. The ranch felt cold and hollow, so opposite the way it had felt when he was a boy.


Uriah followed Armando in to the stable his father and brothers had built. One hundred stalls and he’d mucked ever one, hating it with every fork full of horse droppings. Yet now the memory wrapped around him like a warm blanket.


Armando light and turned up the lamp on the nail by the door and the sight inside the stable brought Uriah to a standstill.  Armando looked up at him, “After I sold off the herd, it was bigger than I needed.”


Uriah nodded after a minute, he understood the necessity, but it was a shock like walking into a closet when one expects to walk into a cathedral. Armando had built a wall after the fifth stall, effectively shrinking a hundred stall stable to a ten stall stable.


He led his horse to an empty stall and started to unbuckle the saddle. The person door cut into the larger, stock door opened. Uriah looked up to see a woman’s silhouette in the door frame by the days dying light.


“I thought I heard you two.” Elizabeth stepped into lamp light. “Hank is missing.” Elizabeth moved her piercing gaze from her husband to her brother.  “Why do I get the feeling you know this?”


“Because we do, I arrested him for bank robbery this morning.” Uriah said without pausing in his work. Armando glared at him.


“You did what?”


“Shall we go in the house?” Armando suggested. “I think we need coffee for this. And George should be called.” Armando interrupted. Elizabeth looked as if she would prefer to continue the discussion here. But differed to her husband and with a nod exited the stable.


“You could have handled that with more tact.” Armando said blanketing his team.


Uriah didn’t answer. He rarely saw the point to tact. Elizabeth and George—eventually even Abigail—would have to deal with the fact Hank was in a lot of trouble. Sooner was usually better than later.


Armando turned, Uriah was finishing up whipping down his tact when Armando didn’t speak or turn away; Uriah glanced up. “Let me do the talking in there.” Uriah turned back to his work. Armando’s un-averted gaze made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.


“You can do the talking.” Uriah said evenly. “I will be a while longer.”


Armando gave a little nod of his head before he exited the stable.








Armando sighed as he entered the house, glad to finally be home. It was a good house, excellently crafted from split logs and stone. Two stories the main stair case rose elegantly before him. To his left was what was called a great room, large and open with a central fireplace, quite adequate for holiday parties. To his left was a small sitting room, beyond which was a screened in porch. The hall between the sitting room and the stare led to the kitchen and what had once been a maid’s room,


Armando went to the kitchen where he knew he would find his wife. The room was the main hub of ranch life and had been built proportionally. Upon entering, the wall to the right was dominated by a huge stone hearth that was designed to be used for cooking. Beyond the hearth was a little bump out where the back entrance led to a small lean-to, and where a cellar was dug. On the back wall was a large square pained window, underneath which was a sink with running water. A large work surface was built to the left, with beautifully worked cabinets above and below. On the left wall was the secondary stairway, followed by a large potbellied stove.


It was at the stove that Elizabeth worked, she looked up when Armando came in. “I am sorry you found out about Hank that way.”


Elizabeth made a sound somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “He is my brother Armando. I should have been ready for his bluntness.”


“How can anybody be ready for that, Elizabeth?”


“Let it go Armando. Uriah is what he is. He doesn’t pull punches and he doesn’t butter feelings. He can’t.” Elizabeth gave a shrug. “George should be here in a minute.” She picked up the perking coffee using a dishtowel to protect her hand as she moved it to the large rough hewn, plank table in the center of the kitchen.


Armando could see the strain of the day on her young face, reddened from the heat of the stove. The lines of worry and exhaustion that ghosted her eyes and crinkled her usually smooth forehead spoke of a long, grinding day. The ending of which was promising only more of the same for the foreseeable future. Armando caught her hand and drew her into his embrace. “I love you wife.” He said in her ear.








Why couldn’t he just keep his trap shut when it came to stuff like this and leave it to people like Armando who had a way to make words softer. Uriah forcibly shoved his emotions down. He could have kicked himself for opening his mouth back there, but brooding about it wouldn’t help.


Uriah walked out of the stable and shut and latched the person door. Shoving his hands deep in the pocket of his jacket he marched across the frost covered ground. The sun had set and it was dark, there wasn’t even a glow in the western horizon, except for the warm glow of the house.


As he got closer to the house Uriah could make out Armando and Elizabeth in the kitchen. He was happy for his sister, Armando was so obviously in love with her. They were talking and he remembered his mother and father, talking in the kitchen. Remembered sitting at his own table watching his wife bustle about their little shack of a place.


A hot tear slid down his cheek and he tried to swallow the lump the sharp knot in his throat, but it would have been easier to swallow his Adam’s apple . He tried to block the memory, but it was there anyway, dancing before his eyes.


They hadn’t had much, a secondhand stove, a straw mattress bed just big enough for them and love. The table had been a wood plank nailed to a stump and the chairs had been rough examples of the common furniture, nothing like what he’d imagined would take shape under his hand.


Virginia loved it and with her exquisite feminine touch she’d turned the shack he’d built into a home. There was a beautifully sewn comforter filled with goose down and embroidered dressing the bead. Curtains appeared one day to hide the oiled paper that fitted over the widows and served in place of the more expensive glass. But most of all there was her laugh and smile and determination. She was his rock and his anchor and he was lost without her. What kind of God took that away?


“Uriah.” Elizabeth’s voice startled him out of his reverie. She was standing in a pool of light. He stood there in the night seeing her in the light her hand stretched out like a life line over the abyss into which he was falling.


“Are you alright Uriah?” She said right beside him. He stepped away a little. “Armando told me what happened in town.” Uriah looked at his boots as he listened. “He told me you were going after Billy.”


Uriah’s head snapped up and he looked in to Elizabeth’s eyes. He didn’t know what he had expected to see, but the compassion and concern he did see made his lip curl and anger ignite in his gut. The anger pushed away all the grief and all the questions that swirled around in his head.


Elizabeth recoiled from him. Uriah tried to shutter his unmasked anger from her. “I am tired Elizabeth.” He spoke without looking at her. “I’d like to go to bed.”


“Your room has always been ready for you Uriah.”