Will Writes Telegram to His Family in Boston Telling Them About His Planned Trip Home and Boards Train (Book Two, Chapter 1)

Boston, Spring 1886

Will glanced at the telegram paperwork, then leaned back and sighed. He’d written it out and gone over it several times, and still didn’t feel confident about what it said. He’d addressed it to his aunt, and thought she would probably understand what he meant, no matter what he said. But he was still struggling with what exactly he should say. He felt as though he’d been through hell and back in the last several years, and wasn’t sure what kind of company he’d be by the time he got back to Boston. They were his family, and they’d love him no matter what, but he definitely wasn’t the same person he’d been when he first left. He’d made his name as a lawman, risen to the top, fallen in love, and been married.

Then he’d seen his wife murdered, fallen into an abyss of depression, and put himself in harm’s way. He’d watched his best friend be shot by Mexican outlaws, and nearly been killed himself.

He hadn’t wanted to live, and he’d done his best to die, but in the end it hadn’t been his choice. A woman named Elizabeth had found and saved him, and worked her way into his heart. Now he counted her as one of his best friends. She’d left him in New Orleans to go back to her own life, and he meant to go back and find her just as soon as he was better. But first, he had to return to Boston, try to regain his health, and get this shoulder taken care of.

Just thinking about everything he’d been through in the last three years exhausted him. How was he ever going to explain it to the family. Those staid, civilized people of Boston, who’d heard of the Wild West but never experienced it for themselves. Those people who thought guns were for decoration, more than anything else, and horses were meant to pull carts and look pretty.

Will laughed again at that thought. Yes, he was surely going home a different person, and it was going to shock the hell out of everyone back home. There was something about that thought that amused him. He rose from the chair at the telegram office in New Orleans, handed the piece of paper to the clerk, and headed out the door.