Wade accepted his mild punishment with no complaint, obediently retiring to his room after school each day for a week. Grace brought him food and mothered him more than normal, always checking to make sure he wasn’t cold or hungry. Wade had to admonish her to leave him alone in order to fulfill the stipulation of the punishment, which was that he wasn’t to socialize. On Saturday, he chopped wood until blisters formed on his hands, and he would have continued if Clyde hadn’t told him to stop.
When his restriction ended and he was permitted to go back to his daily routine, his relationships with the children resumed as normal, with the exception of Sadie, who took great pains to avoid him. On the occasions when it was impossible not to speak, she mumbled her answers and kept her gaze downcast. All traces of her dislike for Wade disappeared, replaced by a guilty expression and a melancholy that pervaded her every move.
Wade wanted to smooth things over and figure out the motive behind what she’d done. Though they had always butted heads, he couldn’t fathom what had inspired her to hurt him so deeply. He never would have done something so cruel to her. He respected her and even cared about her, and before she’d set him up, he would have sworn she’d felt the same for him. He wished she would tell him what had changed.
Sadie never allowed him to get close enough for a conversation. Her eyes were rimmed with red and swollen often, indicating to him that she cried when she was alone. Wade caught her several times staring with a tortured expression at Clyde when his back was turned, and Wade could almost hear her trying to convince herself to confess. Wade understood why it was so hard for her to go through with it. Though undoubtedly Clyde would forgive her, his disappointment would be as excruciating for Sadie as it had been for Wade.
As much as Sadie had wronged Wade, he couldn’t help but feel compassion for her. He knew Sadie wanted to confess, even if she didn’t. Plus, he noticed how hard she worked to be a good person and help others. No one else seemed to notice it, but Wade noticed more and more that she wasn’t like other girls at school her age who spent time curling their hair or sewing embellishments on their frocks. She quietly rose every day, donned one of her brown dresses, and got to work, starting with lighting the stove. The other children referred to her as 'sour Sadie' because she rarely cracked a smile, but her diligence allowed the rest of them to live more carefree lives. The younger children could scatter throughout Lebec after school to fish, swim, or visit with friends because Sadie would always be the one to walk home and fix their supper without complaint.
Wade thought this was unfair, so he redoubled his efforts to help her. “Grace, did you sweep the porch like your sister asked you to?” Wade asked one afternoon, noticing that Grace was fiddling with her jumping rope for an especially long time after school.
Grace looked up and shook her head. “Not yet.”
“Don’t you think you ought to?” Wade asked, his eyebrow raising. Grace neglected her responsibilities often. It wasn’t out of any sort of spite; rather, her mind jumped from subject to subject quickly, evident in the way she talked. She could never concentrate for long on any one thing. If he or Sadie didn’t stay on her case, she would be completely without focus.
“Yes, I will, Wade,” she said, standing. “I was trying to figure out how to fix the rope. The handle came loose.”
“Let me see,” he said, holding out his hand. Grace gave it to him and watched intently as Wade managed to secure the handle back in place.
She clapped with glee. “Thank you!” she squealed. She gave him a hug and sat down on the sofa next to him. “I found some marbles over by the mercantile. Do you want to see them?” she asked, already pulling them out of her pocket. She opened her fist to reveal three small glass balls of different colors.
“Those are pretty,” Wade said, smiling at her.
“You can have one if you like.” She dropped the biggest, prettiest marble of the bunch into his hand.
Wade studied the round glass. It was three shades of blue that swirled together with a touch of gold coloring. “Thank you, sweet Gracie,” he said.
“Will you be my friend always, Wade?” she asked.
He studied her. There was only a difference in age between them of three years, but to him she seemed so much younger and more fragile. Her big, green eyes held innocence and a trace of worry. She’d looked at him that way often ever since the fiasco with the stolen money, seeming concerned that Wade might decide to up and leave one day.
Wade gave her braid a gentle tug. “I’m not your friend, silly. I’m your brother. And I’ll always be your brother.”
She grinned, her youthful face returning to a relaxed state. “All right, that’s good. I sure am glad I have such a nice older brother.”
“I’m not nice all the time, especially when someone’s being naughty. Aren’t you forgetting something?” he asked with mild sternness.
Grace looked at him blankly. “Am I?”
He laughed, unable to maintain his stern composure. “The porch, remember?”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, giggling and jumping to her feet. “I’ll sweep it now.”
“Don’t forget about it on the way to the door,” he admonished jokingly.
She didn’t make it to the door before a loud knock startled them all. Wade and Sadie exchanged questioning looks, a rare moment of eye contact between them, before Wade stood to answer it. It was unusual to receive company at that hour between when school was finished and their pa returned home.
The man standing outside was Clyde’s deputy, Hank Gray. He looked tired and worn out, like he’d been riding hard all day.
“Hello, Mr. Gray,” Sadie said. “You joining us for supper?”
“No,” he replied, removing his hat. He stepped inside, not waiting for an invitation. “I have something to talk to you kids about. Let’s all sit down.” His voice was ominous, and it struck Wade as odd that he had called on them without Clyde. Wade couldn’t think of a time he’d seen Hank without Clyde.
Hank sat in their pa’s armchair. He twisted his Stetson in his hands, staring down at the ground for a long time. Eventually, he looked up and gazed over their heads at the far wall of the cabin.
“I have some terrible news, kids. There’s no easy way to say this, but your pa was shot today by criminal he was trying to arrest. The doctor tried to save him, but the bullet had pierced his heart. There was nothing he could do.”
***
Some images from that evening played over and over in Wade’s mind. One was giant tears rolling down Grace’s face. She clung to Wade, sobbing, wordlessly begging him to take her pain away. But Wade couldn’t provide her with the comfort she needed—not in that moment and not in the days and weeks that followed.
All the anger he’d felt prior to joining the Shaw family returned, along with the desire to run. The house that had grown comfortable and familiar felt small and foreign once again. It was Clyde who had made Wade’s life something worth living, and it was Clyde who had made him feel like he deserved to be part of a family. The knowledge that he had died before learning the truth about what had transpired with the stolen money compounded Wade’s grief.
Clyde had never formally adopted the children who weren’t his by blood, and he hadn’t written a will, so all his possessions were legally bequeathed to Sadie, who turned sixteen the day after his death. Wade was secretly relieved to be free from all legal ties to the property. Sadie was better suited to care for the cabin and the children, anyway. Within days of Clyde’s death, while Wade fell apart, Sadie cowboyed up and returned to her no-nonsense routine of cooking, cleaning, and organizing, ensuring that the grief-stricken family continued to eat and maintain some semblance of structure.
Though Wade was grateful to Sadie for the sake of the rest of the children, he couldn’t offer her even one word of encouragement. To his way of thinking, she was partly to blame for the unbearable pain Wade carried. Clyde had died thinking Wade had betrayed him. He couldn’t come to terms with that irreversible truth.
A few weeks later, while cleaning out Clyde’s room, Wade located the jar containing the money he’d earned doing chores. It surprised him to discover that the cash he’d been accused of stealing was still rolled up in the same place where Sadie had planted it. When he found some time alone, he unrolled the wad of bills and counted them, discovering for the first time how much Clyde had thought he’d stolen. It was nearly eighty dollars, much more than Wade would have guessed. His eyes stung with tears as he recalled Clyde’s anger and disappointment, and he wished more than anything to speak to him one last time.
But that would never happen. He removed Clyde’s eighty dollars from the jar and placed it back in the nightstand, where Sadie could find it later. He stuffed what he’d earned from his chores in his saddlebag. That evening while the rest of the family ate supper, he sat on the cot in his room, holding his packed bag in his lap and pondering his departure. Though he felt bad that he was going to abandon the children, especially Grace, his guilt was negligible compared to the mountain of grief he felt as a result of Clyde’s death. He dismissed the notion of taking Grace or anyone else with him. It wouldn’t be in their best interest.
He remembered the promise he’d made to Clyde when he’d first joined the family. Clyde had made him promise to inform him if he wished to leave, not just slink out when no one was watching. “I can’t tell you I’m leaving, Pa, because you’re not here,” he said in a scoff.
Though he knew leaving without informing anyone would be against Clyde’s wishes, Wade determined he was no longer bound by his promise, and he couldn’t face saying goodbye. The only man he’d ever loved and respected was dead, and Wade’s loyalty died with him. He hadn’t wanted a family in the first place.
He waited until the rest of the household slept. Then, fueled by grief and anger, he silently slipped into the night and began his journey west, determined to leave all the pain of his childhood behind him.