An Outlaw's Redemption

Chapter Three

Present Day - Winter 1867

Weston Barlow gripped the tinplated photograph tightly as he stared into his mother's soft eyes. Why did it have to happen? Life could have ended up so differently had it not. He often thought back to that summer in '47 when his life changed so drastically. Perhaps believing if he had never made that promise in the first place, he could have killed his mother's killers and justified her death — or perhaps he could have been wearing a gun and killed them before they ever had a chance to pull the trigger. "It doesn't matter," his mother's soft voice echoed in his memory, "Life is full of unexpected disappointments. You can't change it, son."

Dr. Rachel York couldn't resist peeking over his shoulder at the photograph as she passed by him headed toward the rocking chair near the fireplace.

"Your wife?" she asked, knowing her curiously always got the best of her.

He shook his head and tucked the photo into his pants pocket, "No, ma'am." That was all he offered.

She nodded and sat as she questioned, "Sweetheart? Sister?"

A sigh escaped his lungs, "My mother."

She smiled softly, "She's lovely."

"She was."

At the obvious use of past tense, the doctor arched her brow, "How long has she been gone?"

He flinched as a muscle tightened in his jaw, "Twenty years."

Sympathy passed through her chestnut eyes, "I'm sorry. Losing a parent is never easy...I think a little piece of you dies with them."

He nodded, "Sounds like you've had your own share of loss, Doc."

She had a sorrowful expression wash over her features, "Yes...as have many. I lost my Pa and two brothers in the war. Then my Ma succumbed to pneumonia six months later — but really, I think she died of a broken heart. After losing two children and her spouse, she seemed to lose the will to live."

A softness drifted through his features and a flicker of compassion passed through his emerald, green eyes, "I'm sorry."

She sighed, saying nothing. After a moment of silence, she said, "The war robbed a lot of people of their loved ones...it was difficult on all of us."

The war between the states had ended only two years prior, though the aftermath of its terror still lingered on. Many refused to say the war was over, and the battles continued sixteen months after Lee surrendered to Grant. Weston wished with all his might to forget the pain he had witnessed as a result of the war and its aftermath.

"Did you fight in the war?" she finally asked.

Weston Barlow hesitated; the bitter taste in his mouth lingered from the memory of the battles and of the countless lives lost. "Yes...I suppose you want to know what side I fought on?" he asked solemnly.

She shook her head, "No. It doesn't matter what side you were on. Neither side was right about everything, just as neither was wrong about everything. My brothers fought on each side; one wore gray and the other wore blue, yet neither of them lived. My father didn't even serve, but he was killed when our home was raided."

Barlow swallowed hard. The war had taken much from the people of the country...many would pass the war down in history as simply a war to abolish slavery, but the war was so much more than that. In fact, that is not the reason it began at all. The main cause of the war was from gold and the southern states desiring freedom to do as they chose without being ordered about. Barlow understood that; he never wanted to be told what he could or couldn't do; yet, he agreed with the northern states as well once the issue of slavery did come up and it became a turning point of the war. No man or woman had the right to own another. He had learned some people only see a color and not a soul. That's the way he felt when he returned from the war in his uniform. If people disagreed with the side he represented, they would turn away from him and treat him as though he were an animal...or perhaps worse than an animal. At least they would acknowledge a creature that was starving and offer it a bite to eat — but for him, they ignored or spat on him simply for the color of the uniform he wore.