Portersville, J.W. Osborn [free ereaders txt] 📗

Sam joined Joe Dodge at the door. “Come down to the kitchen with me.” she suggested.
“You haven’t been cooking have you Sam?, ” I asked.
“No,” she replied “Esparanza has and I want to talk to my Pa before he leaves for Portersville.”
She had begun to call him her “Pa”. Though Joe was not used to hearing it, he sure seemed to like the sound of it. I saw the smile it put on his usually somber face. They left my office and I watched after them. Oh Lord, if you could just restore that man’s memory so he could remember that she is his daughter,” I said to myself as I walked out of the room and headed for the barn. With Joe leaving in the morning, I had to find Ely and tell him he was taking over.

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It was humid and misty that morning. But Spring was soon to give way to early summer and the heat would become close to unbearable at times. Scrub Pot looked back at the light in the window of his cabin. It was good to know that Esparanza would be there to tend his hearth and keep that lamp burning for him. He was not sure where the custom came from, but he liked it. Who would have believed that at his age, after many years of being a widower, he could have found such peace, happiness and stability with her. Two horses stood side by side by the front steps. Both were saddled and ready for a long ride. Joe Dodge checked the girth on his worn saddle as Scrub Pot tied his bedroll to the back of his. “Your journey has not been an easy one, my son,” he commented as he shoved his shot gun into its scabard on the saddle. With the ease of a man far younger than he was, Scrub Pot mounted his tall black and white paint. “Together we will find the way home,”.he added.
Joe placed his foot in the wooden stirrup and mounted his horse. “I have no wish to live on as I have, Father,” he said as he took up his reins. “I must reclaim what I have lost.”
"Then lets ride,” Scrub Pot replied and in the misty chill of the early morning their journey began.

“We face trials every day of life, Joseph,” Scrub Pot said as he rode along beside his son. “We must have faith, and hope that when we get to Portersville, something will awaken your memories.”
“Some days are light and others are dark,” Joe commented “I made a living as a wrangler all these years, as that is what I knew. I had to have a name, so I called myself “Dakota Joe.”
“Why would you pick Dakota for a name when you could not remember your own, my son?”, Scrub Pot asked.
“It was where I was living at the time.” There was such a gap in time and distance and in their relationship and Scrub Pot intended to build a bridge across it and learn all he could about what happened to Joe and where he had been for the last twenty years. “Do you remember anything more about Doc Stevens?”, he asked.
“I met him at the ranch.”, Joe replied “but I recall nothing about him passed that day.”
“Ah, but you remembered his horse, didn’t you?”
“I was confused,” Joe replied “Which seems to be the way my life has been. My stallion, Black Joe Diamond, I was so sure I saw him in the paddock that day.”
“You saw his son.,” Scrub Pot replied.
“Why do you not own him, Father?” Joe asked. The old man chuckled to himself. “Well, I had no intention of selling Smokey Joe to anyone, let alone Doc Stevens. That black stud colt was my last link to you and Black Joe Diamond, whom you loved so much. The mare I bred him too foaled just around midnight on All Saint’s Eve, about seven years ago. Doc was there when he hit the ground and made it clear that he was taking him. At the time I did not know that Black Joe had bred one last mare before he died. She was a big sorrel that belonged to Wolf Standing and Sam’s stallion, Trouble, is out of her. He is the last colt, Black Joe threw. He died that winter.
“How old was he?” Joe asked quietly
“He was twenty five years old.” Scrub Pot replied.
“Why I can remember him, but nothing else from my life, just shattered pieces of senseless images, I do not understand.”
“Black Joe Diamond was part of you, my son. “ Scrub Pot replied. “ and maybe Doc can help us make sense of those shattered pieces of your soul.”
“And what if Doc does not believe you, and what if I am not who you think I am?”
“You are exactly who I think you are, Joseph,” Scrub Pot stated firmly. Joe Dodge had no more to say as they rode on.
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Text: Copyright (c)February 14, 2010-JWO
Publication Date: 01-11-2013

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