James had sense, too. More than I did, anyway. You worked the ranch together. From the time we were boys until the night he died, we were a good team. He could do the heavy work.
I handled the books and the planning. Made a whole person between us, our father used to joke. Silas picked at a splinter on the porch step. After our parents died, it was just the two of us. That was enough.
More than enough. Norah waited, not pushing, just present. "6 years ago, we had trouble with rustlers," Silas continued, his voice going flat the way it always did when he told this part. "They'd been hitting ranches up and down the valley, stealing cattle in the night. Everyone knew they'd come for us eventually.
We weren't big enough to post guards, weren't rich enough to hire protection." James said we should take turns staying awake, watching. I was supposed to take first watch that night. The stars were fully out now. The Milky Way spilled across the sky like someone had kicked over a bucket of light.
Silas kept his eyes on those stars because looking at Nora at her sympathy would break something inside him that needed to stay whole. "I fell asleep," he said simply. Sat down with my rifle, told myself I'd just rest my eyes for a minute, and I fell asleep. When I woke up, there were gunshots. Four men in our pasture loading our cattle into a wagon.
James running toward them, shouting, trying to stop them alone because his fool brother was sleeping instead of watching. Silas, they shot him, he continued, the words coming faster now, like poison he needed to purge. Three times. And I just stood there. I had my rifle.
I could have fired back. Could have done something, anything. But I froze. I was too scared, too small, too useless. I just stood there in the dark while my brother bled out in the pasture.
And by the time I finally moved, finally ran to him. It was too late. He died in my arms, asking me why I didn't help him. The silence that followed was enormous. Silas felt the weight of his confession settle around them like snow, muffling everything, making the world feel distant and unreal.
That's why you're alone, Norah said finally. Not a question. That's why I deserve to be alone, Silas corrected. James was everything good about this ranch, about our family, and I let him die because I was too weak to stay awake, too cowardly to fight. Everyone in the valley knows it.